Restless

There’s something about those square numbers on a digital clock … that ugly electric red … and when the numbers are

4:53

– arggggghhhh – just knowing how little sleep I’ve had makes me even more restless.

And once the mind starts going, it’s all over.

It’s like an ear worm from a song, except your whole brain’s talking and the tune isn’t catchy.

For the longest time, more than three months after my surgery, I was sleeping great – eight or nine hours. Even when I woke up, I’d just turn over and go back to sleep. I thought I’d licked the insomnia thing.

First, I started waking up after seven hours. Then after six. Now five.

Some small thing wakes me up, and then I’m aware that I’m awake so I go to the bathroom, and then my brain just starts working.

As though it didn’t get enough done during the day.

It’s not caffeine or sugar or alcohol. I’m only drinking alcohol and coffee on weekends. I eat almost no sugar or refined carbs of any kind.

I’ve tried taking a warm bath before bed, drinking milk, eating almonds, but none of that helps. I don’t have trouble falling asleep; I have trouble getting back to sleep.

I do think that Daylight Savings Time contributes to the problem. It’s like having jet lag for seven months.

You’re in the wrong time zone and your body knows it. But I’ve usually adapted within a couple weeks of the time change.

Back in February I had developed a nice routine of doing things to deliberately relax, several times a day. Then my routine went to hell.

Stress really piled on when the plumbing went out and my attention was constantly being whipped around like a wind sock in a hurricane.

It turns out to be not great that my couch became my office. Having my work computer in my face all day and all evening is not good for peace of mind. I’m starting to just work all the time.

I also have been busy at work. As my brain has started getting up to speed, I have gotten frantic about catching up with all the time I lost.

Because I got busier, I stopped meditating, and even stopped my “10 minutes of doing absolutely nothing” breaks.

At least I kept exercising, which alleviates stress. But exercise is something of a chore even when you enjoy it; it isn’t deliberate relaxing.

In the last few days, when insomnia has been the worst, I’ve also been too busy to do art in the morning. Something I swore I would not do.

All day my mind has been busy, busy, busy. I went for a walk, touching the wildflowers and talking to birds, and tried to drain my mind.